According to a recent report by Scripps Howard News Service, Mexican food is poised to become America’s favorite ethnic cuisine. Reporter Lance Gay writes that we eat four times more Mexican food than we did 20 years ago, and salsa sales are trouncing ketchup. Tortillas are replacing bread as consumers choose wraps and burritos over sandwiches. Tortilla sales, in fact, are 200% higher than they were a decade ago.

This is great news for organic food shoppers, who are finding a much wider variety of fresh chili peppers, salsas, guacamoles and tortillas at local organic and natural food stores.

Gay also notes that Mexican food has almost doubled in popularity among Americans who cook regularly (from 44% in 1985 to 86% in 2003—statistics provided by the Institute of Food Technologists). This homemade fare, which features vegetables and other fresh ingredients, is much more healthful than the cuisine enjoyed at many mainstream Mexican restaurants, whose chefs often rely on lard, entrees that overflow with cheese and the allure of huge portions.

Ironically, as more Hispanics become U.S. residents, their eating habits shift dramatically as they embrace the far-from-healthy standard American diet: frozen meals, salty snacks, junk food and other high-fat fare. They are prime candidates to embrace organic living!